Forum: Bryce


Subject: Am I trying to do the impossible, or just out of my league?

Depheant opened this issue on Aug 12, 2001 ยท 9 posts


Depheant posted Sun, 12 August 2001 at 1:47 PM

This looks like a good place to ask the question: "how do you get a streaming light effect?"... from inside a sphere. What I did was use the boolean operation in order to get only 1/4 of the sphere (I did it this way because I have a reason, not because I'm dumb), then duplicated the piece until it made a complete sphere again, and set the pieces 0.50 units apart (for the light to exit?). I looked at three different tutorials, but I ended with the same disappointing result- nothing happened, not a streaming light effect anyway. It's probably because I only had Bryce for a few days... but is it possible to get the effect I want, or am I just dreaming? And if it is possible, how? Thanks.


TomDowd posted Sun, 12 August 2001 at 2:15 PM

I assume you are using a volumetric light set to infinite? Also, I'm not sure that a spherical point light will work they way you are wanting....you may need to fake it with multiple shallow spotlights set up like a cube (with overlapping edges)... TomD


Depheant posted Sun, 12 August 2001 at 4:51 PM

Yeah I'm using a volumetric light set to infinity and thank you very much for the tip- even though I have no idea how to implement it, but I'm pretty sure it'll help in the future. :)


TomDowd posted Sun, 12 August 2001 at 6:09 PM

I just went and played around some - a radial light won't stream the way you want - it just doesn't do it. You need to use a spot light to get a streaming effect. The way I was suggesting to fake it would be done like this - imagine there's a cube inside your sphere. The face of each cube is really the "mouth" of a volumetric spotlight...I've never done it, but I think the edges of the spotlights would have to overlap so that there wouldn't be an edge ... All that said, I just tried to implement my suggestion and the render choked my PII250/512meg machine...so, take what I'm saying with the appropriate grain of salt. Bottom line, is I guess, you may have to fake it with spotlights in some configuration to simulate the radial light inside the sphere. TomD


Poppi posted Sun, 12 August 2001 at 6:48 PM

Okay...go to our tutorial section. There is one that is a link to other, offsite tutorials. Hit on that one, and, go to Peter Sharpe's tutorials. He has a very good one on doing the streaming light. Hope this helps you.


tradivoro posted Sun, 12 August 2001 at 7:12 PM

Attached Link: http://www.petersharpe.com/Tutorials.htm

Go to the above address, I think you'll find what you're looking for....

TomDowd posted Sun, 12 August 2001 at 9:33 PM

::nods:: he da man :-) TomD


Depheant posted Mon, 13 August 2001 at 3:49 AM

Hey thanks guys! I tried what you said (TomDowd) and it froze my PC, and here's the wierd bit: I have a Dell PC P4 @1.7 GHZ and 512Mbs RDRam. I never imagined that Bryce could take up so much in such a small amount of time. I'm gonna try and do it again, and this time restart my PC :) And thanks again.


thunderdon posted Mon, 03 September 2001 at 1:40 AM

Picture shows one way using HOLLOW sphere with holes cut in truespace and exported as dxf (bryce will fill holes if not dxf). I haven't tried with holes cut by bryce. Just rember that sphere must be hollow or light will have to fight through sphere material (1 positive sphere + 1 negitive sphere scaled on x,y,z smaller than first(differance in volume is walll thickness) and grouped together. Another way to fake it is; Use paralelle lights grouped like cross duplicated and rotated until density is correct then grouped again and rotated on y axis (to form a complex spiked object) then regroup with the light settings set to surface visable and infinate. I'm not sure that the effect will be alll you want but it may halp.. Good Luck! td